— By David Walsh
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — Troy’s women’s basketball program remains unbeaten in its relatively brief series history with Marshall.
How the latest victory came about was puzzling and tough to take for the Thundering Herd.
Marshall stole a page out of Troy’s offensive manual in the first half and raced to a 52-32 lead at the break.
Whatever the message from coach Chanda Rigby at halftime, the Trojans took it to heart. The Herd couldn’t contain Troy after intermission.
The Trojans outscored Marshall, 53-30, in the second half to escape Cam Henderson Center with an 85-82 win.
“We played really well and within ourselves in the first half,” Marshall coach Juli Fulks said. “And then the second half, they got us to do things. We keep going back game after game. We’ve had one good half and the other half. We haven’t played as well in this going both directions.”
It so happens the comeback allowed Rigby to secure career win No. 500.
Troy made a dent in the deficit in the third period with a 30-13 edge and finished it off with a 23-17 advantage in the final period.
Troy (17-4, 8-2 Sun Belt) connected on 21-of-34 shots in the second half and had six threes.
Fortuna Ngnawo led Troy with 21 points and 12 rebounds. Ashley Baez finished with 18 points and Zay Dyer scored 17 to go with 14 boards for the 29th double-double in her last 34 games.
The Herd (17-6, 8-3 SBC) had a tough time on both ends over the final 20 minutes, making 10-of-28 shots and 4 of 16 from three.
Timaya Lewis-Eutsey paced Marshall with 33 points. Ni’Kiah Chesterfield added 14 and Meredith Maier scored 12, all in the first half.
With 3:55 left in the third period, Chesterfield’s basket gave the Herd a 61-48 lead. Back came the Trojans, mainly behind Ngnawo’s nine points. The visitors, thanks to a late 6-0 run, trimmed the deficit to 65-62 entering the fourth. Troy finished its dominant third quarter making 13-of-18 shots and 3 of 4 from three.
In the final period, the Herd led 73-66 after a three-point play by Lewis-Eutsey with 6:57 left that capped a 6-0 run.
Kamesha Moore started the decisive Troy rally with a three at 6:02 and Dyer’s layup at the 5:39 mark made it a two-point game.
With 1:57 to play, Ngnawo connected on a follow-up to give Troy the 80-78 lead — its first since advantage the opening minutes.
Lewis-Eutsey recorded another three-point play with 1:39 left to put the home team back up for the time being, before Dyer made 1-of-2 free throws with 1:19 left. Following a Marshall turnover, Baez drained a three with 57 seconds left.
One free throw from Lewis-Eutsey was all the offense the Herd could muster the rest of the way as Timberline Yeast missed two free throws down the stretch with a two-point deficit and Maier’s three at the buzzer in an effort to tie was off the mark.
“We were pushing,” Fulks said. “I give the players a lot of credit. We didn’t have Blessing (King) tonight and that’s hard to make extended minutes, which probably led to some turnovers. We were getting tired.”
The Trojans had a 51-31 rebounding edge on the Herd, including a 23-9 margin on the offensive glass. Rigby is now three wins away from becoming Troy’s winningest coach (she has 272 and Joyce Sorrell leads with 275).
The Herd is now 0-4 all time against Troy.
Marshall welcomes Louisiana at 1 p.m. Saturday.
“I wish I’d done a better job. I didn’t like my performance today as a coach,” Fulks said. “I wish I’d done some things differently. Move forward. This is not the first game that didn’t go our way. We have another Saturday. We need to put a good effort forward. You get in different lineups, but it always makes you better at the end of the year because people get more minutes and more experience.”